Feral Cats

Before we look at what feral cats are, let's look at what feral cats are NOT.

They are not wild creatures.

They are domesticated cats that have been forced to become feral by owners who have neglected to care for them. Because feral cats are domesticated, they cannot survive in the wild. That is why they are found around human beings, but still as isolated from human beings as possible, such as alleys behind restaurants and hotels, in basements of blocks of flats, in warehouses and so on.

Feral cats do not attack humans.

The hissing and back-arching on sight of humans are not an attack mechanism; it is merely a form of self-defense, because of their non-too-pleasant memory of the human species. They have learned the hard way that to survive is to avoid humans are far as possible.

In this non-cat-friendly world of ours, fortunately there are people and non-profit organizations that do care for these unfortunate creatures. With a motto similar or around the concept of “Every One Deserves a Chance”, it is the policy of such organizations to not have these feral cats put to sleep, but to give them a fair chance to a decent life. The modus operandi is to capture the adult feline, neuter them, and return them to the feral colony under the watchful eye of a feral caretaker who will tend to them, feed them and nurse the sick. The result is a stable colony where no new kittens are born and new feral cats are rarely accepted into the colony due to the territorial nature of the animals.

Should a kitten be found, it is rescued and placed under the care of a foster mom, whom will feed and look after the precious kitten until it is big enough to be neutered, inoculated and placed with a loving family who will and can treat it like it deserves to be treated. Did you know that your cat thinks he is the boss and you are his pet? Better believe it!

Taming a feral cat that was previously petrified of humans, and hearing that first purr is the ultimate reward one can receive.

The aim of this article is to dispel the myth that a feral cat colony can only be contained by capturing the feline and putting it to sleep. Rather, the opposite is true – every one deserves a chance.

Interesting fact: The first major national cat show ever in the USA was in 1895 at Madison Square Garden and included feral cats.

Comments

TNR programs and their advocates are making absolute fools out of each and every one of you that they con with their nonsense. Not only are they causing untold damage to ALL native wildlife (directly and indirectly) and further spread of deadly diseases to all animals and humans, but are also doing *ABSOLUTELY* *NOTHING* to curtail cats' breeding rates. On top of that, they are doing all of this while violating all invasive-species laws in existence. (Cats being listed in the TOP 100 WORST invasive-species OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database".)
If you do the research, as I did using data from the most "successful" TNR programs, you'll easily find that no TNR program has EVER trapped more than 0.4% of existing cats in any one area for over a decade now. (Even Oregon's amazing 50,000 TNR'ed cats, at the end of this year will have only trapped 0.35% of them.) They simply cannot trap them faster than they breed out of control, no matter what they do. And those cats that learn to evade traps go on to produce offspring that now also know how to evade any trapping method used. So not only are >99.6% still and ALWAYS breeding out of control, and spreading their diseases everywhere, and still destroying ALL wildlife (native prey becomes tortured play-toys, native predators starve to death from cats destroying their ONLY food), but TNR fools are also ensuring that any future generations of these devastating invasive-species won't even be able to be trapped. This is why, due to TNR-Advocates' insistence that they have "the answer", that their feral-cat population has now climbed to an ecologically-deadly 150 MILLION feral-cats across the USA. Soon to turn into 1.5 BILLION cats within the year if you apply cats' breeding rates to previous population numbers. (That's actually a low low estimate. The real number from calculations spit out by their reproduction rates is closer to 2.4 BILLION.)
Find whatever way that you can to destroy all feral and stray cats on-site. Avoid using traps if at all possible because trapping is what slowed everything down to where cat populations have now sky-rocketed out of control. TNR advocates are at least right about one thing; trap and kill doesn't work either because it is based on the very same flawed method that they use -- slow, random-chance, inefficient, easily outfoxed traps. There's a reason the phrase "hunted to extinction" is so well-known in all cultures across all lands. It is the *ONLY* method that is faster than a species can out-breed and adapt to.
On advice of the local sheriff where I live I used a .22 equipped with a good illuminated-scope and a laser-sight for use when they are most active, dusk to dawn; as well as to afford precision aim for a humane kill. I shot every last one of them on my property to restore all the native wildlife to proper balance. Mission accomplished! 100% total success! This is even a more humane method than terrorizing trapping and animal-shelter methods; and why it is the preferred feral-cat management policy in so many areas today. One moment the cats are happily stalking defenseless animals to cruelly torture again, the next they are dead and don't even know what happened. Making your land 100% cat-free is something that cat advocates haven't been able to solve nation-wide for 30-40 years. On my land only 1 person in only 2 seasons was able to accomplish what they couldn't attain in decades. Why is that? The cost per cat was also only 0.3 CENT, 3 cats PER PENNY, a ONE-TIME expense (5000 rounds on sale for only $15). All cats gone for the price of a few cups of coffee. And contrary to another famous TNR-Advocate's bald-faced "vacuum effect" LIE ... NO CATS REPLACED THEM. The NATIVE predators and their required NATIVE prey that WAS here and BELONGS here is what replaced their lousy invasive-species cats that had destroyed the entire native food-chain. This year I'm even enjoying birds I've never seen in my life before. Two of the warblers listed in the top 10 songbirds of the world for their song. What an amazing sound to awake to each morning. You have no idea what you're missing if you have cats by you. I now feel sorry for anyone who has cats. Their lives and world are dismally empty and they don't even know it.
May you have as much success as I did, and so quickly and inexpensively too.
p.s. Avoid the use of poisons if at all possible that, if released into the food-chain, would go on to harm the very wildlife that you are trying to save from destruction by cats. And please bury or incinerate the carcasses so all the highly toxic diseases that cats now carry won't go on to harm nor infect more wildlife or humans. Which, if you do a Google search, now even includes cats spreading the plague in the USA. So much for that myth that cats would have saved people from the plague in Europe, cats would have made it far worse, and just might do so this time around. Search some more and you find they are also spreading flea-borne typhus and tularemia now too.

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We work at a company with warehouse facilities for importers. Naturally there would be stray cats and as nature depicts, they would breed. What we do, is to capture the mature cats and have them neutered. The mature cats will then be released back to where we found them. We have a network of caring people that foster the kittens we capture on-site until they are old enough to be adopted by a caring family. This way we do what we can to curb uncontrolled breeding in feral cats. As far as "torturing" their pray is concerned, your comment speaks for itself. Ill-informed people will be found everywhere, sad for you.

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Look up the term TNR advocates just LOVE to use on how they reduce their feral-cat numbers, their candy-coating feel-good term of "Death by Attrition". This means that their cats will die from disease, cat-attacks, animal-attacks, exposure, road-kill, starvation, and any other means that drastically shortens cats' lives. ALL their cats suffering for how many months it takes to die that way. In many parts of this country and the world this clearly falls under the guidelines for cruelty to animals, animal-abuse, animal-endangerment, and animal-abandonment laws. Including being in direct violation of every invasive-species law in existence.
Let's not forget how TNR advocates don't hesitate to carve up cats with scalpels as well as cutting off parts of their ears, from which they have to heal-up for weeks before they try to survive again. As if letting them die of "attrition" wasn't bad enough, TNR-advocates start them off by terrorizing them with traps, cages, and sticking knives into them first. (Which is also precisely why they can't trap them a 2nd time to keep them vaccinated.)
Not only are they cruelly torturing cats, but also all wildlife they inflict their cats upon. Their cats literally ripping the skin off of and clawing the guts out of any wildlife to use it as an agonizingly and slowly dying twitching play-toy for their cats. And as soon as all the "fun" has drained out of their play-toy, they go on and find another one to torture. This is no different than if cat-owners went to a pet-store and bought canaries and hamsters then threw them at their cats to watch their cats tear them apart for their amusement. What about all the native predators that depend on all those animals for their ONLY food? Their cats cause all those animals to STARVE TO DEATH. TNR-advocates' cruelty knows no bounds.
If you want to raise revenue for your towns and cities in order to deal with this invasive-species ecological-disaster properly, start charging all these TNR advocates with severe fines and imprisonment for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS AND VIOLATION OF INVASIVE-SPECIES LAWS.
They're not doing this out of any goodness of their hearts. THEY DON'T HAVE HEARTS, nor minds. Proved, 100%.

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Some further information to help you do the RIGHT thing. ALL the required laws that you need to deal with this problem are already in place and have been for decades most everywhere.
Cats listed in THE TOP 100 WORST INVASIVE-SPECIES OF THE WORLD in the "Global Invasive-Species Database" (google for URL)
Cats are _NOT_ exempt from invasive-species laws.
IT IS YOUR CIVIC AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO DESTROY ANY INVASIVE-SPECIES WHEN FOUND AWAY FROM SAFE CONFINEMENT AND OUT IN A NON-NATIVE HABITAT. In fact, it is against the law to NOT destroy an invasive-species on-site. Since cats are genetically engineered through selective-breeding and no longer have ANY native habitat ANYWHERE on earth, these laws include cats. This is precisely how they are dealt with on my own land, destroyed by using any and all humane methods** (see note).
For an example of how invasive-species laws are properly followed and enforced: It is highly illegal for a person to transport an African Cichlid fish species to just the other side the road if you catch one in the canals of the Everglades when fishing. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED ON-SITE. Yet Cichlids are often kept as pets, that's how they wrongly got into the canals to begin with. There are hefty fines in place for anyone found transporting these invasive-species alive if caught in the wild. (Interestingly, these Cichlids are FAR FAR LESS damaging to the environment and all other native wildlife than ANY cat.)
All of this much to the dismay of criminally irresponsible and psychotic cat-lovers who are desperately trying to raise these invasive-species cats to some absurd level of "Community Cats". If they do that then I'll just raise "Community Pet Piranha" and release them in all your lakes and pools, or "Community Pet Black-Mambas" and release them in all your backyards and parks, then claim the exact same protections for them as cat-advocates want for their invasive-species cats. It'd only be fair! Are you starting to see just how absurd and ludicrous these cat-advocates are yet?
** (Though to be perfectly honest, considering how cats cruelly torture and destroy all other animals by ripping the skins off of live animals or disemboweling them for slowly dying and twitching cats' play-toys (not even using them for food), I'm not sure why cats should be given the privilege of a humane death. I've been drawn to many animal screams in my woods to find their cats shredding another animal to death; which I had to then quickly put that animal out of its misery, torment, and suffering caused by that cat. Lucky for those I found so fast from their screams. Other wildlife that I'd find days later had died a slow and agonizing death from wounds after being shredded by their cats. I guess I'm just more humane than all cat-lovers and their cats, that's why their cats get shot and die instantly instead of equitably and justifiably tortured to death. If cat-advocates want REAL justice for their cats then any cat found outdoors would have to be cruelly tortured to death the same way their cats cruelly torture all other animals -- something that I couldn't do. Maybe that's why TNR-advocates don't mind that their cats slowly suffer to death by means of "attrition" -- by disease, attacks, exposure, starvation, road-kill, etc., on ad-infinauseum.)

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Woodsman HAS BEEN POSTING ON 100's OF SITES the same exact wording. Heâ€™s obviously a landowner with a financial interest in being able to shoot cats on his property. Most of his arguments are distortions of statistics or irrelevant if you check them. Such as links to studies showing that fleas cause disease, etc. So what?
TNR does help reduce cat populations. Those who promote it have the same goal as the landowners like this guy. Cats are just wild animals. The reason they are multiplying on your land is because you upset the ecosystem by killing all the coyotes, wolves, owls, etc. Certain groups are heavily propagandizing to advocate killing of all wild animals in favor of expanding human expansion, profits, etc...Successful TNR threatens their goals.
Shooting cats is not the answer. Some of them are already friendly and have been set free by ignorant peopleâ€¦ Thereâ€™s a lot of youtube videos of happy endings with for feral cats. An example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0c3shTi-A . If the goal is to eliminate suffering, TNR helps. Also, these programs must be allowed to continue because eventually science can find a more effective way to mass sterilze cats via biotech and perhaps some sort of dna-altering substances which can be put in their food. (and which would only sterilize cats, not other species). Something like that. This would also solve the problem for landowners like the one whoâ€™s posting all this over-puffed comments.